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The President had a warning for the opposition party.

Soon he will decide what "Democrat agencies" he would reduce and whether those cutbacks would be short-term or permanent.

He said the government shutdown, which started this week, had given him an "unique chance."

"I have a meeting today with the budget director, known for his role in Project 2025," he wrote on his social media platform on Thursday morning.

The Project 2025 Connection

Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, may not be a household name.

But the 2025 initiative, a conservative blueprint for governing put together mostly by previous administration figures like the director when the Republicans were out of power, featured prominently during the recent election cycle.

The 900-page policy document contained suggestions for significant cuts in the federal bureaucracy, expanded presidential authority, strict border controls, a national prohibition on abortion and other elements of an far-right social program.

It was often highlighted by the Democratic candidate the former vice president, as what she called a risky proposal for the coming years if he was to win.

At the time, trying to calm swing voters, the president attempted to separate himself from the proposal.

"I know nothing about the 2025 plan," the president stated in July 2024. "I disagree with certain aspects of their proposal and some elements are completely unreasonable and terrible."

Shifting Approach

Currently, though, Trump is using the conservative blueprint as a threat to get Democrats to agree to his spending requirements.

And he is highlighting Vought, who authored a chapter on the use of executive power, as a kind of financial grim reaper, ready to take a scythe to federal programs near and dear to the opposition party.

To make the point even clearer, on Thursday evening Trump shared an computer-created spoof video on Truth Social with Vought portrayed as the grim reaper, accompanied by changed words of the rock band's classic song.

Washington Responses

On Capitol Hill, GOP officials have echoed Trump's characterisation of the director as the White House heavy.

"We have no say over what he's going to do," GOP Senate leader John Thune said. "This is the risk of closing federal operations and transferring control to Russ Vought."

Senator Mike Lee of Utah told Fox News that the director had been "getting ready for this situation for many years."

That may be a bit of an overstatement, but Vought, who gained experience as a Capit Hill aide for GOP fiscal conservatives and assisted in managing the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, has a wealth of experience digging through the intricacies of the federal budget.

The Bean-Counter Behind the President

He served for twelve months as the deputy director of the White House budget office during the initial administration, advancing to become its director in that year.

In contrast to numerous others who worked for the president during that initial term, Vought had staying power - and was quickly reinstalled as head of the budget office when Trump returned this year.

"A lot of those who didn't come back embody outdated approaches," said a policy expert, a think tank official who, similar to the director, started his professional life in GOP fiscal policy networks.

"Russ was ahead of his time in the first term and perfectly positioned now."

While the director doesn't tend to shy away from controversial statements – he once said that he aspired to be "the person who crushes the bureaucratic establishment" – he doesn't particularly appear the role of conservative villain.

Balding and bespectacled, with a salt-and-pepper facial hair, the director's remarks generally feature the controlled rhythm of a bean-counter or academic.

He lacks the intense stare and heated language of another advisor, a different presidential consultant who manages administration border measures.

Capitalizing on Government Closure

Now Trump has threatened to deploy the director at a moment when, because of the regulatory uncertainty caused by the federal closure, their reductions could become more extensive and lasting than those implemented previously.

Ex-congressional leader Newt Gingrich, a participant in the big shutdown fights of the 1990s, told NPR that the director and his staff have been preparing for precisely this situation while they were in the opposition period during the Biden years.

"Everyone understood a federal closure was likely," he said. "I believe they concluded from the beginning that significant change requires the level of transformation they want if you're determined and very determined and every chance you get, you seize the moment."

The advantage this shutdown presents for budget-cutters like Vought is that, without congressionally approved funding, the federal operations continue in a regulatory uncertainty with fewer budgetary restrictions.

The White House can, in theory, cut budgets and personnel deeper than it could previously, when expenditures followed standard funding levels.

And while permanent layoffs would still have to follow a two-month warning, the director could begin the countdown whenever he, and the president, so choose.

Current Actions and Future Battles

Vought already has announced significant construction initiatives in New York City and Chicago are paused, citing the need for a examination of questionable employment policies - a examination that he said can't take place during the shutdown.

He's also cancelled nearly $8bn in clean energy projects across 16 states, each supporting the Democratic candidate, the president's rival, in the recent election.

Democrats and federal worker unions have vowed to challenge these cuts in the legal system and claimed that the president is issuing largely empty threats to try to pressure them into giving up their opposition.

Numerous financial experts have noted that the White House reductions have been accompanied by other spending-increasing measures, which could weaken their criticism on Democrats for being the party of fiscal irresponsibility.

"Republicans are increasing spending in other areas and reducing revenue at the identical period," Brett House, an academic expert at the Columbia University School of Business commented.

"The notion that they're committed to financial responsibility is not borne out by what they're doing."

Political Risks

Some Republicans in Congress have expressed concern that the apparent glee with which Trump is touting Vought-ordered cuts could alienate voters if the closure continues.

GOP officials have cautioned of the serious effects of the closure on public operations - as part of a strategy to portray Democrats as the ones to blame.

Doing so while celebrating the new ways the government is cutting programs could derail those efforts.

"Russ is less politically in tune than his boss," South Dakota Senator the senator, a participant in the efficiency group, told the media outlet.

"Our party have never had so much moral high ground on a government funding bill in recent memory… I don't understand why we would squander it, which I think is the risk of employing presidential authority in the current situation."

The North Carolina senator, a North Carolina senator who has chosen not to run for another term, cautions that administration officials "need to be really careful" in how they announce additional reductions.

The Doge-directed layoffs and programme cuts were largely unpopular, according to polling data, negatively affecting the president's approval ratings.

A repetition of this now perilous.

As the expert stated, however, the administration, and Vought, may view the long-term benefits as well worth the short-term challenges.

"For Russ, for myself, for anybody who's in the budget space, this country is going bankrupt,"